For a moment there was silence between them, Betty stared up into his face with wide scared eyes, while he gazed down at her as if he would fasten something on his mind that must never be forgotten.  Suddenly he lifted her soft cold hands to his lips and kissed them passionately again and again; then he held them in his own against his cheek, his glance still fixed intently upon her; it held something of bitterness and reproach, but now she kept her eyes under their quivering lids from him.

“What am I to do without you?”—­his voice was almost a whisper.  “What is this thing you have done?” Betty’s heart was beating with dull sickening throbs, but she dared not trust herself to answer him.  He took both her hands in one of his, and, slipping the other under her chin, raised her face so that he could look into her eyes; then he put his arm loosely about her, holding her hands against his breast.  “If I could have had one moment out of all the years for my own—­only one.  I am glad you don’t care, dear; it hurts when you reach the end of something that has been all your hope and filled all your days.  I have come to say good-by, Betty; this is the last time I shall see you.  I am going away.”

All in an instant Betty pressed close to him, hiding her face in his arm; she clung to him in a panic of pain and horror.  She felt something stir within her that had never been there before, as a storm of passionate longing swept through her.  Her words, her promise to another man, became as nothing.  All her pride was forgotten.  Without this man the days stretched away before her a blank.  His arm drew her closer still, until she felt her heart throb against his.

“Do you care?” he said, and seemed to wonder that she should.

“Bruce, Bruce, I didn’t know—­and now—­ Oh, my dear, my dear—­” He pressed his lips against the bright little head that rested in such miserable abandon against his shoulder.

“Do you love me?” he whispered.  The blood ran riot in his veins.

“Why have you stayed away—­why didn’t you come to me?  I have promised him—­” she gasped.

“I know,” he said, and shut his lips.  There was another silence while she waited for him to speak.  She felt that she was at his mercy, that whether right or wrong, as he decided so it would be.  At length he said.  “I thought it wasn’t fair to him, and it seemed so hopeless after I came here.  I had nothing—­and a man feels that—­so I kept away.”  He spoke awkwardly with something of the reserve that was habitual to him.

“If you had only come!” she moaned.

“I did—­once,” he muttered.

“You didn’t understand; why did you believe anything I said to you?  It was only that I cared—­that in my heart I knew I cared —­I’ve cared about you ever since that trip down the river, and now I am going to be married to-morrow—­to-morrow, Bruce—­do you realize I have given my promise?  I am to meet him at the Spring Bank church at ten o’clock—­and it’s tomorrow!” she cried, in a laboring choked voice.  For answer he drew her closer.  “Bruce, what can I do?—­tell me what I can do.”